The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022 has created an unprecedented social-psychological context that fundamentally disrupts the conditions for personal self-realisation. At the same time, a significant portion of the Ukrainian population – adults aged 35 to 55 – were already navigating a normative developmental crisis associated with the midlife transition. The convergence of these two crisis streams creates a unique psychological situation that Ukrainian psychology has not yet systematically studied.
This paper offers a theoretical analysis of what we term the double crisis of self-realisation, a concept emerging from an ongoing doctoral study on the psychological determinants of self-realisation in adults under crisis conditions. The central argument is that understanding self-realisation as a dynamic, context-dependent process rather than a fixed achievement is essential for both theoretical advancement and practical psychological support in wartime Ukraine.
1. Self-Realisation as a Dynamic Process: Theoretical Foundations
Contemporary psychological theory increasingly conceptualises self-realisation not as a final state or a hierarchy of needs to be satisfied (as in classical Maslovian terms), but as a continuous process of aligning one’s core values, potential, and lived experience with action and social context [1]. This shift from a static to a dynamic model is theoretically grounded in several converging perspectives.
Dan McAdams’ narrative identity theory holds that adult identity – and the self-realization embedded within it – is structured as a personal myth: an internalised, evolving narrative that integrates past, present, and imagined future into a meaningful whole [2]. The sense of being the author of one’s own life, which McAdams terms agency, is a direct psychological correlate of self-realisation. Crucially, McAdams identifies redemption sequences – the capacity to reframe negative events as sources of growth – as a key predictor of psychological well-being and continued realisation under adversity.
Hubert Hermans’ dialogical self-theory adds a structural dimension: personality is understood not as a unified monologue but as a polyphony of internal voices or I-positions, each representing an internalised relationship, role, or cultural script [3]. Self-realisation in this framework is the outcome of an active internal dialogue between these positions. Crisis disrupts this dialogue by eliminating or delegitimising entire realisation positions – “I as a professional with stable income”, “I as a person with a future plan”, “I as a resident of my city” – generating internal conflict and paralysis of realisation activity.
Edward Deci and Richard Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory (SDT) offers the most operational account of what sustains or blocks self-realisation [4]. According to SDT, self-realisation requires the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs: autonomy (the sense that one’s actions are self-chosen), competence (the belief that one is capable of achieving meaningful outcomes), and relatedness (a sense of belonging to others and to something larger than oneself). When these needs are frustrated – as they systematically are under wartime conditions – the motivational basis for self-realisation collapses, even when external opportunities formally exist.
Finally, Glynis Breakwell’s Identity Process Theory describes how individuals defend core identity principles – continuity, self-esteem, efficacy, and distinctiveness – when threatened by external disruption [5]. Transposed to the domain of self-realisation, these principles function as psychological preconditions: the sense that one’s realisation path has a future (continuity), that one is worthy of realising oneself (self-esteem), that one’s actions produce results (efficacy), and that one’s realisation is meaningful and unique (distinctiveness). “In the Ukrainian context, war appears to systematically undermine all four.
2. The Double Crisis: Normative and Non-Normative Disruption
Adults aged 35 to 55 occupy a developmentally significant life stage. This period is characterised by what Erikson termed the crisis of generativity versus stagnation – a fundamental re-evaluation of what one has accomplished and what remains possible [6]. Normatively, this involves questioning whether current roles, relationships, and activities genuinely express one’s values and potential. It is a time of heightened existential sensitivity to the question: “Am I living a life that is truly mine?”
From a lifespan perspective, this normative crisis unfolds along several psychological dimensions. First, individuals often encounter a discrepancy between the self-realisation scenarios they internalised in early adulthood – shaped by family, culture, and professional trajectory – and their actual life situation at midlife. Second, they confront biological and temporal limitations that shift the experience of future possibility from open-ended to finite. Third, they frequently experience a transition in motivation: from extrinsic drivers (career advancement, social approval) toward intrinsic ones (meaning, authenticity, contribution) – a transition that SDT identifies as central to mature self-realization [4].
In Ukraine since February 2022, this normative midlife crisis has been compounded by a massive non-normative disruption. The war has simultaneously attacked each of the three zones of the self-realisation model proposed in the present dissertation. The core meaning zone – the foundation of values and self-narrative – has been destabilised as people confront existential threats to themselves, their families, and their nation. The realisation space – the concrete roles, relationships, and contexts through which people enact their values – has been physically disrupted through displacement, loss of employment, separation from professional communities, and bereavement. The context of opportunities – the institutional, social, and cultural infrastructure that enables realisation – has been partially destroyed or radically transformed.
The result is what we term the double crisis of self-realisation: the simultaneous experience of normative midlife questioning (“Who am I and what do I truly want to realise?”) and non-normative crisis-induced blockage (“The conditions in which I was realising myself no longer exist”). These two streams are not merely additive – they interact and amplify each other in psychologically significant ways.
Specifically, the normative crisis renders the individual more psychologically vulnerable to external disruption: when a person is already questioning the meaning of their realisation trajectory, the external destruction of that trajectory is especially destabilising. Conversely, the non-normative crisis intensifies the normative questioning: forced displacement and role loss compel a re-examination of core values and realisation priorities that might not otherwise have occurred until much later, or not at all.
3. Psychological Mechanisms of Realization Blockage
Drawing on the integrated theoretical framework described above, we identify five primary psychological mechanisms through which the double crisis blocks self-realisation in the 35–55 age group.
Loss of realisation positions. Following Hermans [3], crisis eliminates entire I-positions through which the individual was enacting their values – professional, social, and territorial. This creates an internal polyphony deficit: fewer voices remain to sustain the dialogue of self-realisation, and those that remain are often in acute conflict.
Frustration of basic psychological needs. War systematically frustrates autonomy – the sense that one’s actions are self-chosen – competence, or the belief that meaningful outcomes are achievable, and relatedness (through social network rupture and community loss). SDT research consistently demonstrates that need frustration, particularly of autonomy, is the most powerful predictor of motivational collapse [4].
Narrative rupture. The personal myth - the coherent self-narrative that provides continuity and direction – is interrupted. The person’s story of “who I am and where I am going” no longer holds. Without narrative reconstruction, the future appears as formless and the past as invalidated, leaving no psychological platform for forward-oriented realisation activity.
Activation of defensive strategies. Breakwell’s model predicts that identity threat activates defensive responses – avoidance, denial, or rigid adherence to pre-crisis realisation scripts – that may provide short-term psychological protection but impede flexible adaptation and realisation renewal [5].
Motivational regression. Under sustained threat, adults tend to shift from intrinsic to extrinsic motivation – focusing on survival and security rather than meaning and growth. This regression is psychologically understandable but represents a fundamental blockage of self-realisation in the deeper sense, as intrinsic motivation is the psychological fuel of authentic self-realisation [4].
Conclusions
The concept of the double crisis of self-realisation offers a theoretically grounded and empirically testable framework for understanding the psychological situation of Ukrainian adults aged 35 to 55 during and after the war. It brings together narrative, dialogical, and self-determination perspectives into what may be considered a unified explanatory model that captures both the structural disruption of self-realisation conditions and the motivational mechanisms through which this disruption operates. This framework has direct implications for psychological support practice: effective intervention must address not only symptom relief but the restoration of meaning clarity, agentic activity, realisation flexibility, and basic psychological need satisfaction – the core determinants of self-realisation identified in the present research program. A narrative-oriented psychological support programme designed to accomplish precisely this is currently being developed and empirically tested as the applied component of the dissertation.
References:
1. Deci E. L., Ryan R. M. The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry. 2000. Vol. 11, No. 4. P. 227–268. DOI : https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01.
2. McAdams D. P. The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology. 2001. Vol. 5, No. 2. P. 100–122. DOI : https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.2.100.
3. Hermans H. J. M., Kempen H. J. G. The dialogical self: Meaning as movement. London : Academic Press, 1993. 336 p.
4. Ryan R. M., Deci E. L. Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. New York : The Guilford Press, 2017. DOI : https://doi.org/10.1521/978.14625/28806.
5. Breakwell G. M. Coping with threatened identities. London : Methuen, 1986. URL : https://archive.org/details/copingwiththreat0000brea.
6. Erikson E. H. Childhood and society. New York : Norton, 1950. URL : https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.19961.
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